Why the Yankees need to sign A.J. Pierzynski

I can understand why Yankee fans would be wary to sign anyone who goes by the name "A.J." but the ancient New Yorkers need to add the soon-to-be 36-year old A.J. Pierzynski as their catcher for the next couple of seasons.

Here are some reasons...

Let's start with the fact Pierzynski is a horse. Since 2001, Yadier Molina has caught over 100 games eight times, second among active catchers only to A.J. who has done it for 12 consecutive seasons.

Over the last five seasons, A.J.'s hit .283, only Yaddy at .296 has a better average.

A.J. in his career has thrown out 24% of the baserunners attempting to steal compared to the league average of 28%. This past season, he threw out 26% compared to 25% for the league.

Over the last five seasons, Pierzynski's pitchers had ERAs of 4.17, 4.08, 3.95, 4.04, and last season 4.06. Over the last five seasons, Martin's pitchers had ERAs of 3.63, 3.36, 4.04, 3.70, and last season 4.03, so the Yanks probably will take a bit of hit in that area.

But here's why the Yanks need to sign Pierzynski and he will be a huge step-up over Martin: Martin is righty and A.J. has a left-handed swing made for the Yankee Stadium short right field porch and jetstream.

Take a look at the location of Pierzynski's 2012 hits

Of Pierzynski's 27 homers, 23 were to right and right center

Here are the fly balls and liners that Pierzynski pulled for outs last season

Reportedly, Pierzynski's clubhouse presence is "interesting," to say the least. In an article in ESPN, The Magazine, Tim Keown wrote that the catcher loves to win, a characteristic admired in Derek Jeter's clubhouse.

"I don't know what people expect me to be like," he says. "I think the media can decide you're either a bad guy or a good guy, and they can keep pounding it until everyone thinks it's true. I get tired of the crap. Every day you read the newspaper, you have to hope that somebody didn't say something or write something that'll make you have to defend yourself."

Pierzynski is a good-natured bad boy, more mischievous than mean. He consistently worries that his mother, Mary Jane, a loyal subscriber to Google Alerts, will be calling to ask him, yet again, to explain himself. He needles teammates and annoys opponents, and he does it with a sideways grin and a tongue-in-cheek manner that doesn't always translate well into baseball's militant code of ethics. And although he's had problems with teammates in the past, his personality seems to get more appealing the closer you get to it.

Or, in the inimitable words of Ozzie Guillen, "If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less."

A.J. seems like a good fit for the Yankees and a great fit for the back pages of the New York tabloids.

Hiroki Kuroda: Command King

Hiroki Kuroda brushed aside concerns that his finesse stuff would not translate to the American League last season, establishing new career highs in innings pitched (219.2) and ERA+ (126) for the Yankees. The Bombers would have been a $200 million also-ran without Kuroda, considering that Michael Pineda's season-ending shoulder injury, CC Sabathia's barking elbow, Phil Hughes' and Ivan Nova's homer woes and Freddy Garcia's morphing back into a pumpkin made New York's rotation a middle-of-the-pack unit in 2012.

Kuroda will again don pinstripes in 2013, reportedly turning down more lucrative, multi-year offers to sign a one-year, $15 million deal with the Yankees. The 38-year-old had other teams willing to shell out ace money because he displayed the best command of any starter in the DH league last year.

While Kuroda throws a handful of pitches ranging from the low 90s to the low 70s, they all have one thing in common: They hardly ever catch the middle of the plate. Take a look at Kuroda's pitch location with his sinker, slider, splitter and curveball:

Kuroda's sinker location, 2012

Kuroda threw 21.2% of his sinkers to the horizontal middle of the strike zone, comfortably below the 22.9% average for AL starting pitchers in 2012.

Kuroda's slider location, 2012

Kuroda tossed 16.8% of his sliders over the middle of the plate, compared to the 23.1% average.

Kuroda's splitter location, 2012

With his splitter, Kuroda threw to the middle of the plate 18.6% of the time. That was well below the 21.1% average for AL starters.

Kuroda's curveball location, 2012

Kuroda placed 19% of his curves over the middle, compared to the 25.2% average.  

Pitchers typically get crushed when the leave the ball over the middle of the plate, surrendering a .511 opponent slugging percentage last year. Kuroda was no exception, as opponents slugged .536 when he left the ball over the middle. Happily, Kuroda threw the lowest percentage of pitches over the horizontal middle of the dish of any qualified AL starter in 2012:

Lowest percentage of pitches thrown to the horizontal middle of the zone among AL starters, 2012

Pitcher	Pct. Middle Pitches
Hiroki Kuroda	19.3%
Dan Haren	19.5%
Jon Lester	19.9%
Colby Lewis	20.3%
Doug Fister	21.0%
Clay Buchholz	21.1%
Jered Weaver	21.2%
Gavin Floyd	21.2%
Jason Vargas	21.5%
Kevin Millwood	21.6%
AVG for AL SP	23.6%

Another CC- performance by Sabathia

The Yankees have given CC Sabathia a lead in each of his last five starts including last night's against the Tampa Bay Rays. Sabathia has given that lead back in each of those games including last night's 6-4 loss and the Yankee Universe has to be wondering if their team makes the postseason, how long can they last with an ineffective CC Sabathia?

CC has not been brilliant all season.

In his first 15 starts, the Yankees went 11-4 and Sabathia went 9-3 in spite of his 3.45 ERA. He surrendered 10 homers and struck out 105 in 107 innings. Batters hit .257 and slugged .400 against him.

Sabathia then went on the disabled list and didn't make his first start after the All-Star break until July 17. From that date through last night, a series of 10 starts, the Yanks have gone 4-6 and CC himself is 4-3 and the hefty lefty has a bloated 3.91 ERA. He's given up 11 homers in just 69 innings while striking out 64. But batters have hit only .234 and slugged .407.

One of Sabathia's problems has been the decreasing effectiveness of his fastball since the 2009 season and the numbers and the graphics tell the story.

Sabathia's 2009 fastball:

When you look at these graphics remember you are looking for colors in the orange-red range reflecting high batting success. As you can see here, batters were only hitting Sabathia's fastballs on the fringe of the strike zone. This resulted in a .248 batting average on a pitch that averaged 94.1 mph. He allowed nine homers among the 114 hits off the pitch. He recorded 64 whiffs on fasballs.

Sabathia's 2010 fastball:

We can see the orange/red colors more dramatically here in the strike zone as batters hit .262, a jump of 14 points. He gave up nine homers and 98 hits on the pitch that averaged 93.6 mph. He struck out 60 batters.

Sabathia's 2011 fastball:

Now instead of focussing on the orange/red end of the spectrum, start comparing the dark blue to green colors to prior years which reflect low batting averages and ineffective results. You can really see those colors disappearing as last season batters hit .286 against Sabathia's fastball that averaged 93.9 mph, about the same as 2010. However in 2010, 8% of the flyballs hit against Sabathia went for homers while in 2011 that number was up 10.9% as CC ceded 11 homers among the 91 hits he allowed. Strikeouts on his fastball were down to 52.

Sabathia's 2012 fastball:

Now I'm a tad color blind, but even I can see the scarcity of blue here as red has become the predominant color. You can also see by the location of the red in pitches down the middle, that Sabathia has not been effective in fooling or overwhelming batters in the heart of the strike zone. This season, batters are hitting .301 against the fastball that is now averaging 92.4 MPH. That's a jump of 53 points since the 2009 season on a fastball that is slowing down. He's allowed six gophers among the 74 hits, but he's also allowed 12 doubles as batters are slugging .488. He has 31 strikeouts on his fastball.

Understand that the diminishing speed of the Sabathia fastball also lessens the the impact of his other pitches as batters have a smaller differential and are less frequently fooled or can make adjustments.

One quick example of this is the Sabathia sinker: 

• In 2009, Sabathia threw a total of 110 sinkers, primarily to righties (88). Overall batters hit .318 with no homers.
• In 2010, the sinker became a big part of the Sabathia repertoire. He threw a total of 508 (righties: 417). Overall batters hit .326 with six homers.
• Last season, CC threw 604 sinkers with 108 now to lefties. Overall, batters hit .313 with one homer as this proved to be a very effective pitch for him.
• This season is another story. Thus far, he has thrown 496 sinkers with 20 per cent of them to lefties.  

You can see from the graphic below what happens when a sinker doesn't sink:

The graphic indicates very little downward movement and that means trouble. Overall, many of his sinkers have been stinkers as batters have hit .344 with seven homers to date on the pitch that averages 91.0 MPH.

The Yankees are getting Ivan Nova and Andy Pettitte back, and it's not a moment too soon. They need additional consistent pitchers besides Hiroki Kuroda as CC searches for his mojo and seeks to improve his pitching grade above C-.